In a bid to resurrect a once leading smartphone brand, TCL company has been sharing snippets of its upcoming BlackBerry-branded handset codenamed "Mercury" for the past weeks. Recently, a known tipster has leaked one juicy rumor - that the upcoming device will be sporting the same shooter sensors of Google Pixel and Pixel XL.
Well-known tech leaker Roland Quandt from WinFuture has recently announced on his twitter account that the Chinese technology firm will pack BlackBerry Mercury with the Sony IMX378 camera sensor, 9to5google reported.
The 12MP Sony IMX378 sensor can record 4K video and is well-known for its impeccable shooting performance. This is also the same specification of the highly praised cameras of the Google Pixel and Pixel XL from the California-based internet giant.
While sharing the same camera specs can be considered as TCL's effort in luring back BlackBerry's supporters, sporting the same sensor does not guarantee similar epic capturing and shooting quality showed by Google Pixel and Pixel XL, Phone Arena reported. It is believed that Google is actually using a special software as well as an "additional sensor hardware" for its handsets, which result to the considered one of the best cameras yet.
Meanwhile, Quandt, also said that the selfie camera of the upcoming BlackBerry Mercury will come with an 8MP shooter sensors, which can be made by Samsung or Omnivision. Either way, features of sensors from the two companies have the same 1.12μm pixel size as well as 1080p/30FPS video shooting capability.
In terms of the forthcoming handsets' hardware, BlackBerry Mercury will reportedly flaunt a 4.5-inch screen with a 1080 x 1680 resolution. It will be powered by a quad-core CPU plus the Adreno 530 GPU backed with the Snapdragon 821 Soc.
The soon-to-be unveiled smartphone, dubbed as a security-centric device, will also have 4GB RAM and a 32GB built-in memory. Aside from its physical QWERTY keyboard, BlackBerry Mercury will boast a long-lasting 3400 mAh battery and will work with a pre-installed Android 7.0.
Chinese company TCL has already let tech journalists and enthusiasts touch and feel its first-ever BlackBerry-branded device during the CES, but the final specs, official release date and the price of BlackBerry Mercury are expected to be unveiled at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona on Feb. 25.